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Brahmavihāras: Equanimity (5 of 5)

Welcome to 2021. Last year, the idea was to have 2020 vision, but little did we know, little could we see into the future and what 2020 would bring. Maybe it's a little silly, but when I think of this year, 2021, for me, the obvious thing to think about is that it's the year for us to become adults. It is the year for our society, our country, and our world to step into some greater maturity, maybe because of the challenges we've gone through this last year.

Certainly, I think it's supportive, healthy, and empowering to wish that, given all the challenges of last year, we are interested in incorporating them or using them as fuel and a catalyst for further growth, maturation, and development—certainly along the Buddhist path of freedom and compassion. May it be so that we continue to grow and mature into a kind of cultural maturity together, into cultural adulthood.

The Four Qualities of Love

The Brahmavihāras^[1] are what I think of as four qualities of love or expressions of love. In the teachings of the Buddha, Brahmavihāra specifically refers to the meditation practice on these four states. We practice them in daily life, and in some ways, they are not unique to Buddhism at all. Friendliness and goodwill are everywhere, hopefully. I think most cultures celebrate compassion and appreciate its value. Celebrating with people is a great human custom, and maybe they don't call it muditā^[2], or the complicated phrase "appreciative joy," but people celebrate together all the time. Equanimity might not be as common, especially equanimity as a kind of love. But all four of these are meditation practices and teachings of the Buddha.

The amazing thing—it's really an astounding thing—is that these four wonderful qualities of love can pervade and characterize the whole quality of one's mind, heart, and very being. It's almost as if, if you are okay with the word "pure," we can live in a mind or a heart that is pure love. It is a heart that has freed itself from ill will, cruelty, and any kind of selfish forms of being in relationship with other people that might look like love but are complicated by selfishness. There is no selfishness whatsoever. It is possible to have this purity with no selfishness, no self-preoccupation, self-conceit, or attachment, and to have it be the primary absorption of concern for the mind and the heart. Just like in deep concentration with meditation on the breathing, where the breathing and the goodness that comes from that become what we get absorbed in, we can get absorbed in love. This is a beautiful, astounding thing that human beings have this capacity.

Love as a Choice

To appreciate this capacity—that we have it—we don't have to leave it to chance. We can cultivate and develop it. In this regard, I think it's interesting to consider whether love, goodwill, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity are emotions. Are they emotions? Are they attitudes? Are they motivations? Or are they decisions that we make? Choices we make. I'm not sure how to answer those questions myself, except to say it's probably a bit of all of those. But the last one is the one that may be the most surprising: that these are also a decision. It is a choice to make. And it's a choice that is easier to make if we've cultivated, discovered, or recognized our innate capacity for love, care, and compassion that lives within us.

We have other innate capacities, like those for cruelty and hostility. But those belong more to the surface mind and surface heart; they are states of agitation. To have the agitation quiet down and experience love in its purity is to experience a state of profound well-being and peace. Even compassion has a sweetness to it if it is pure compassion, without selfishness, self-concern, and agitation. Because they are already here for us as a potential, we start recognizing them. But you choose that.

Choose love over hostility. Choose love over being mean and using mean words. Choose love and affirmation rather than negation. Support people and build them up rather than tearing them down. Appreciate them and what is good in them so that those qualities can grow and develop. Don't be too focused on what is not so good in them, because sometimes what we focus on is what we feed and develop.

So, it is a choice to love more. Let's love. Let's choose to be friendly. Let's choose to be caring. But be careful that it doesn't become another agitation, another "should," another obligation. Rather, it is a manifestation. We are allowing something to manifest that is already here—an impulse, a feeling, a desire, a form of wisdom. It becomes more innate in a sense. It is a choice, but it's a choice to connect to something that is already here and allow it to manifest, rather than trying to manufacture it.

Equanimity and Freedom

In this regard, these Brahmavihāras, when they have a kind of purity or fullness in them, are also a manifestation of freedom. They are closely related to the Buddhist path of freedom. Independent of cultivating the Brahmavihāras, the more free we become in meditation, in Buddhist practice, or in life, most people find that there is a natural impulse to be compassionate, to care, and to love. And as we become more loving, that tends to bring more freedom.

Love is a kind of antidote. It is a solvent for attachments. Love is a solvent for fear and hostility we might be carrying with us. Love is a solvent for resistance. Whether we are on the path for freedom and discover love comes along, or we are on the path of love and discover freedom comes along, this freedom and love go hand in hand.

One of its most mature forms is this equanimity Brahmavihāra, where we have a deep, full love that is almost synonymous with peace. We are so at ease and peaceful with what is there, and non-reactive. We are un-activated by the Eight Worldly Winds^[3] of gain and loss, praise and blame, pain and pleasure, success and failure. These worldly winds can happen to us all, but because the love is so stable, they don't agitate the love. There is a peacefulness and ease with it. We stay free. Freedom protects our love, and love protects our freedom.

A Better World

So, it is partly a decision, and it's a wonderful decision. It's a decision that maybe is itself an expression of our freedom. May this year, 2021, be one of greater and greater love and care. If we are going to have a better world for everyone, I believe it needs to include love. It needs to include our friendship and goodwill. If it doesn't, then I don't really think we can make a better world for ourselves.

Let this new, good world develop in 2021, starting with you. Don't sit around expecting and waiting for someone else to make the world better. Each of us is the agent for the new world for 2021. May we bring our love, our care, our freedom, our goodness, and our generosity out into this world for this year. Thank you very much.